Tuesday Tea on Wednesday

By Beth Wilkinson

Libby's marriage is in trouble. She's sure Paul is having an affair, but she doesn't know what to do about it. Her fourth grade pupils keep her sane, but the highlight of Libby's week is her regular tea time with friends. When Libby's mother passes away, she uncovers the truth behind her father's death, and the mystery of another casualty.
Guilt, revenge, jealousy…how much can one woman take and still get on with her life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Wilkinson
• Release date: Jan 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466027824

Beth Wilkinson

Beth Wilkinson graduated from the University of Wyoming, Laramie. She has taught elementary school grades three and four. Professional affiliations include membership in professional organizations and groups interested in literature, music, adult literacy, the young child, antiques, and art. Other interests are writing poetry and short stories, designing jewelry and traveling. She spends her spare time near Sugar Loaf Mountain, where she has a tree house, a line cabin and acres for hiking. During summers and vacations her grown children visit her there.

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Tuesday Tea on Wednesday

By Beth Wilkinson

ISBN 978-1-4660-2782-4

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011, Beth Wilkinson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

For Louisa

Prologue

Except when I’m ill I dream in colors, vivid colors. If I’m under the weather, have a cold or a migraine, even the blahs, my dreams are in a dull gray or black. Perhaps my dreams glow with color because I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks where vibrant foliage grows untamed and in profusion. There, the extreme weather, with intermittent downpours of rain and heavy humidity, is invariably followed by an explosion of blistering sun that transforms a dreary sky into an intense and spectacular indigo. My best dream, ever, was one where I could see myself walking through my mother’s house, sunshine picking out the delicate colors of the kitchen wall paper and with my footsteps tapping on the bright linoleum floor. I could even smell the strong fragrance of the chicory coffee my mother brewed every morning on the woodstove, a stack of shaggy logs piled nearby. I have tried to recapture that dream many times to no avail.

Certainly I would prefer the dream of my mother’s house to the ongoing nightmare that I have had, off and on, since I was eleven years old. I specifically remember my age because on the day, almost thirty years ago, when the dream first began, my best friend and I were in the grove taking turns on my stilts when he suddenly yelled, Elizabeth, look over there! Oh, God, Elizabeth, it’s someone hanging from a tree!

Chapter One

Get hold of yourself. I remember Paul saying as he groaned and shifted his body to get a view of the bedside clock. Do you realize what time it is? Can't you get control of yourself? All this restlessness - moving around, getting up ten times every night? Really, Lib, maybe you should see a shrink.

The fact is that once I seriously considered seeing a psychiatrist, but, now, knowing my way of doing things these many years later, I would most likely have done a role reversal and counseled the shrink. Also, over time it has not only been the past that has disturbed my sleep.

I tried to remember when this disconnect, this rupture of our marriage and our antagonism toward one another had first begun. Questioning and searching for answers I read family publications and watched television talk shows, eager to learn how a wife confronts a husband when she senses indifference and may suspect infidelity. In my final analysis I decided it was the small stuff - the little annoyances on both our parts. I recalled specific times of lying beside him in the early morning hours and hearing the indescribable sounds that came bubbling from his throat and nose. This revolting disturbance pressed me to find solace by covering my head with a pillow. Then, when my tolerance was at its lowest, I would kick him hard, give him a quick pinch and then lie still. It always worked. He would stop snoring as if awakened from a nightmare; and for a few seconds, next to me, he would listen to my even breathing and try to figure out what may have happened. My spiteful self-righteousness went undiscovered and, undeniably, I found some sort of satisfaction in this inane deception.

Once, at the breakfast table, when I cautiously mentioned his unusually heavy breathing problem and suggested the possibility of surgery, a nose job, maybe, he became offended. Oh come now, Lib, he answered, an expensive operation, and all the misery? If it bothers you, why don't you just sleep on the couch?

Giving thought to incidents of this type reminded me that marriage was a two-way street, as Dear Abby pointed out in one of her columns I willingly admitted my errant ways. Still…

Certainly, it wasn't always like that. At the beginning of our marriage, when I would awake from bad dreams, frightened and sobbing, Paul would hold me in his strong arms and offer his strength and understanding. He spoke sweetly, sympathizing about my father's death and soothingly said that terrible things happened to people all of the time and sh-hhh, Darling, everything will be all right. Eventually he became less sympathetic and said when a person's handed crap they just have to live with it, forget the lemonade, and did I ever consider that my younger brother, Rudy, looked amazingly like Mr. Williams, who to this day runs the Peal Family Lumber Mill. This does not seem probable, considering that Mr. Williams is a man of color and my mother, Ivy, spent much of her life railing against nigras.

Usually, in those earlier times, not to disturb my sleeping husband further, I would swing my feet over to the side of the bed and get out the cigarettes hidden away in the night stand. Inhaling I would draw in the smallest details of what had happened after that long ago day in the grove - the day Aunt Lydia, in her silence, regressed into a mild sort of madness – spending her days standing at the gate waiting for my father, her brother, to return. Even at the oddest moments - wiping down a wall, polishing silver, or sitting at my desk in my fourth grade classroom - my mind wanders. Unconsciously I often put together bits and pieces of thoughts, sort out details of the past and try to figure out why my father hanged himself.

For years I believed my father's death was my fault. During my early teen years, I chastised myself, mercilessly, knowing that if I had been a nicer girl, earned better grades in school, done my chores without being told, had not been sassy, my father would have been happier and would not have felt the need to end his life. I told myself that if I had shown him greater respect by calling him Dad or Daddy as opposed to what I called him - H.L. - it may have made a difference. My mother disapproved of this address and often let it be known with a cuff to the ear or a quick swat to my backside.

You are a flippant youngster...best hold your tongue and show your daddy some respect, she would say. I ignored her words, and at the same time felt smug and self-righteous because H.L. usually appeared not to hear her reprimands. Even years later, my mother, Ivy, and I were never able to discuss the past, never able to talk about what had happened on that terrible day.

I vividly recollect that particular morning and that I had patiently waited on the porch swing, trying to shut out the angry words of my parents' quarreling. As they shouted, it seemed as if their anger blew the gauzy curtains through the half-open kitchen window and I could clearly see them: H.L., his hand raised, and Ivy, holding the baby on her hip and cowering by the cook stove. When the baby began to cry, I remember that his puckered face turned the same color as the bright red rickrack that edged Ivy's apron; and I remember thinking that they'd never had cuss fights before Rudy was born. Never once had my father raise his voice to Ivy, let alone his fist.

Damn you, he had yelled. Damn you to hell. Then he lowered his clenched fist, turned, and stomped out onto the porch. He slammed the screen door and bounded down the wooden steps; his hurried footsteps echoing ghostly sounds. He did not turn back. He had forgotten me, sitting where every morning, since starting to school, I had waited to walk with him, trying to match his long strides as he hurried toward his work at the lumber mill.

Unsure of what to do, I watched as he passed the goats' sheds and plunged toward the grove. For a moment I tried to figure out whether to go into the kitchen to appease my mother or to run after him. My eyes began to water, and I licked at the mucous sliding from my nose onto my upper lip.

Oblivious, Aunt Lydia sat motionless when I moved suddenly from the porch swing, but a cat, curled in a spot of sunshine, jumped sideways and hissed in alarm. Panic filled me and I tried to catch sight of my father, but he had disappeared. Only when I heard a flock of guinea hens scolding in a remote distance, did I realize how long I had sat, stultified, and how far he had gone. Running through heavy undergrowth that connected to the well-worn path my father and I had walked together for many autumns---our destinations the schoolhouse and the mill - I yelled, H.L., wait for me. My voice seemed hollow and weighted down by the morning fog. As I ran, the strap of my overalls kept falling, looping around an elbow, and instead of sliding it back with a hand I kept trying to jerk it up with one shoulder only to have it fall again. Finally sighting him in the distance, I hollered, H.L., H.L., then raced along gasping for air, the heavy braid of my hair whipping my back as if to spur me on. At first he didn't hear me. When he did, he stopped with his back turned toward me and waited.

The leaves is pretty, gettin' all yellow and red, I said as I came up to him and gasped for breath. He stood silently and peered about as if he had only that moment remembered where he was. I said nothing but saw that the morning's sunshine dappled his head, making his hair golden. The leaves, I repeated, they's all yellow and red.

Real nice, he answered in his throaty voice and turned to once again take up his pace.

How many kinds of trees you reckon's in this grove? I asked trying to stall his hurried walk, wanting him to talk to me…say something…anything. Again, seeming unaware of my presence, I stubbornly tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. Jamie told me there's a lot of different kinds of oaks. You reckon that's the truth?"

I reckon he's right.

Like what? I asked.

I knew that my persistence, like a pesky horse fly, bothered him, but I was determined to get his attention. Like what? I repeated, for surely it would make him feel better to know that I did not blame him for being angry at Ivy. He hesitated, as if trying to find his voice, and said, Well, there are burr oak, white oak, pin oak, and black oak. That's the names I can think of on short notice.

Are they all in this grove?

No, but they grow in the area.

Maybe I'll make a list of all the trees that grow in this here county. You'd like that, huh? When he didn't answer I persisted with, I could easy alphabetize them. Yes, I could do that. I learned that very thing at school.

When he did not answer, I glanced up at him and saw that he was crying and when he stopped a moment and drew a large white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes and blew his nose, I was embarrassed. An odd sentiment I did not understand wrapped itself about me and as we again took up walking the familiar path I longed to say the right words to him, to comfort and soothe him, but his grief appeared so terrible that I was afraid to speak. Inwardly I knew it had something to do with the new baby, him being so ugly and bawling, taking up Ivy's time with her always hushing and patting him, saying he was a sweet, precious child, which he was not.

Light-headed and heart-wrenched, I started to sing a song I had learned at school. My thin voice sounded as though it came from somewhere other than my throat, and my father did not seem to hear my determined attempt to cheer him. Even when a wild turkey flew up in a puff of amber cloud, he appeared not to notice. Confused, I stopped singing and quickened my pace to match his until we finally came to the edge of the grove.

Bye, H.L., I whispered and unconsciously he gave my braid a tug and in an anguished voice said, Hurry on now.

Motionless, I watched as he hastened through a small stand of trees, his shoulders slumped and his head downward. I watched as yellow leaves on long stems were suddenly caught by a gust of wind and moved like hands waving goodbye. It was the last time I saw my father alive.

For days my mother speculated about what could have happened to him. He probably went to Springfield or Kansas City with a load of lumber and forgot to mention it, she said in the beginning. Sometimes, as she did the ironing and I sat nearby reading aloud from a favorite book, she spoke in a soft voice, saying that Daddy wouldn't go somewhere without letting us know. Pride kept her from contacting the people at the lumber mill. They're so nosy. Can't seem to mind their own business or their own selves, she would mutter and give a shrug. With a child's instinct, I recognized that my mother was not merely troubled but desperately anxious when after a time she asked repeatedly what Daddy and I had talked about as we walked through the woods.

Trees, I told her. We talked about trees.

A week passed before the mill foreman drove up in his Ford truck to inquire if Mr. Peal mightn't be sick. From where I sat by the kitchen fireplace I could hear Mr. William's questions and Ivy's tired and biting answers. Why the third degree? she asked. You know as much as I do.

I'd like to help figure this out, the foreman answered.

You do that. You find out where he is. I surely haven't any idea why a man with a family would simply disappear.

With all respect, Mam Mr. Williams finally said, the sheriff needs to be informed.

Then why don't you call him? she flared.

I heard my mother's footsteps as she retreated in anger to another room and the snap of the screen door as the defeated man left the house. For a while I rested my head in my lap and sobbed. Eventually and as darkness approached, Ivy appeared, holding Rudy on her hip, and suggested that we have a bite of supper.

The least that idiot foreman could have done is to bring your daddy's paycheck, she said and slammed the kitchen window down against the chill fall evening.

During the weeks that followed neighbors dropped by and sat by the woodstove, drank coffee and talked in hushed tones. H.L. was not a drinking man and he certainly never looked at another woman, they said gravely. Reliable was what he was, an honest man, they said solemnly.

My mother did not cry, at least to my knowledge or as far as I can remember. Nothing seemed to change except H.L. was not at the house to help me with my school work and play checkers in the evening. We spoke little while Ivy nursed and rocked my baby brother; and Aunt Lydia, my father's sister took her usual place by the gate, her bleached eyes staring into space at who knows what.

I helped my mother with the housework without complaint, and without being told I fed the chickens and gathered eggs, hoping for her rare praise of You are a nice girl, Elizabeth.

The one time I started to sing, Ivy sharply said to Hush now. Her obsession for work and cleanliness did not lessen, although the fierceness of her movements---the constant sweeping, scrubbing, folding bedding and rattling dishes--- puzzled me and interrupted my determination to complete the list of trees I was organizing for H.L.

As the weeks passed, she moved about the house with less assurance, sometimes banging a table or hitting a pillow. Her mysterious anger at him would flare, and she would say worrisome things such as, He's taken off for spite, that's it. Peals are well known for their grudges and spiteful ways.

Bewildered I ate and slept and wondered why H.L. did not come back to us, and I only vaguely recall that when the wind would shift there was a strange fetid odor from somewhere inside the grove. After a long and uncommonly warm autumn the area welcomed a cold snap. At night gentle winds blew as if to announce a forthcoming winter.

This is when the leaves had fallen off the trees. This was the day playing in the grove, that my best friend and I made the grisly discovery and could see what was left of my father hanging high in an oak, only his heavy boots recognizable.

I had gone into the grove with Jamie Joel Turner and as he clumped along on a pair of stilts, his shaggy head skimmed the tree limbs and his young strong arms and legs easily propelled his body forward, and dug the stilts into the soft soil.

Jamie Joel, it's my turn now, so's you git down now, right now. I yelled up at him. I mean it, Jamie Joel. Now!

Ignoring me, he tightened his grip and jabbing at the dry root-bound earth, took longer strides.

Hurrying along, grabbing at the poles, I began hollering. Them stilts are mine and ownership is 90% of the law so git down now, and this very minute, Fool.

Early on I had learned that I could coerce Jamie Joel Turner to do a chore or a homework assignment for me if I taunted him by saying he had to do what I said because I was the oldest and then emphasized that in America there was a law about that. I knew it was a lie but easily diminished any guilt and absolved my conscious by crossing my fingers.

So big deal, Jamie yelled down, your birthday bein' seven days before mine don't make you so special.

Well, it sure enough does, I called imperiously. It was my golden birthday. I was eleven on November 11, see? That's what makes it special. Mommy even gave me a little bitty gold coin and she made Jell-O. Lemon. That bowl of Jell-O looked like a pile of gold, yes it did.

Elizabeth, I swear you are one damn weird ole girl.

And you are one damn weird ole boy.

Lemme me see the gold coin, he said and halted with mocking curiosity on his freckled face.

Ivy's akeepin' it for me, I said. She said it come from her father who was justly a fine man. Said he got it when he was in a war that ended a long time ago. I jiggled the stilts and then bumped impatiently at him with my overalled hip.

You lie, he jeered. You're lying. Lemme see if your fingers are crossed because you are lyin.

I raised my splayed fingers and shot him an angry look. See this here, I said impatiently, Now, do you not hear me? I said to git down.

When I kicked at the ground to emphasize that I meant business, the smell of damp earth and centuries of decay fumed and I fleetingly questioned why the grove was without birdsong.

"There's nothin' so red-hot about a gold coin, Jamie said as he jumped down and handed the stilts toward me.

Jamie, I said momentarily repentant of the control I had so easily wielded over him, someday, when you get grown and it's your birthday time, maybe your folks will get you a Chevy truck. That'd be better'n bitty gold coin.

I was wearing a cast-off army shirt of H. L., the sleeves rolled so that I could get a good grasp on the wooden stilts he had made for me the spring before. Happy to be with my best friend and glad to escape my mother's gloom, I started singing at the top of my voice, the song echoing throughout the grove.

"How do you do, Andy Gump, how do you do?

How are you, Andy Gump, how are you?

How is Chester? How is Min?

How's the whiskers on your chin?"

Jamie Joel, walking beside me and waiting for another turn at the stilts, laughed at my singing; but it was a good-natured laugh and he cheerfully joined in. Where's the whiskers on your nuts, Andy Gump? he sang.

Giggling, I repeated the line, and together we ended the song yelling, How do you doodely, doodely, doodely, doodely, do?

The stilts made a hollow sound as I dodged trees and walked over tough grass and through fallen leaves. My high-pitched voice continued to echo eerily into the grove. As we got closer to the creek, bright sun shafts reflecting from the water blinded me and I released my grip on one of the stilts and rested it on my skinny thigh. Shading my eyes with a hand I watched as Jamie started throwing rocks at a distant jackrabbit, and when he missed I tormented with, You're not so red-hot, either.

The stilts, easy to manipulate, were of light-weight pine that my daddy had made at his lumber mill located on the far side of the woods, and for a while Jamie Joel and I move on, secure in the familiar surroundings and each other.

You suppose old H.L. would make me some stilts, Elizabeth?

Sure thing, soon as he gits back home, I answered.

When I smiled down at him his face took on a pleased expression and he shot me a bashful grin.

You're still a weird ole girl, Elizabeth. Damned if you ain't.

For a while we did not talk and as we headed toward the creek, which everyone pronounced crick, my stilts became heavy and with suddenness lodge in the ground. Clearly there was something familiar in the distance, and I was filled with dread and the need to see what it was. Jamie Joel, at my command, struggled to move the mired stilts and even though he was large for his age, he couldn't budge them. A distorted copper-colored mist hung around treetops, ragged against the cloudless Ozark sky, and I saw clear bubbling water moving across huge boulders. I attempted to call out, but the sound I pushed from my throat was strangled and faraway. I felt that I was suffocating and needed to get down and run to the other side of the creek, but my body stubbornly refused to move from its perch. Jamie, for some reason, could not help me and had stopped trying. He stood as if bolted to the ground and stared wide-eyed at something I could not focus on.

Dammit to hell, some friend you are, Jamie Joel Turner, I am finally able to yell at him. You help git me down from here.

* * * *

Painfully, for years, I have been a captive of this nightmare where I am suspended mid-air on pine stilts, and can hear my friend yell and then clearly hear his words of Oh God, Elizabeth, hit's your daddy ahangin' there. Them's his big brown boots with the yeller eagle on the side!

Shivering from cold and still caught in the web of my dream I am awakened with suddenness and drawn back from the past by the family dog's impatient and unrelenting scratching at the bedroom door and determined that someone let him outside he began barking crazily.